The money is an unsung resource, totaling more than $700 million, and the stateâ??s two medical schools are responsible for using it wisely.
The investment income from that money is funding grants for medical education, research and public health throughout Wisconsin that total more than $100 million so far.
Now the Medical College of Wisconsin and the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine & Public Health must decide how to use that income for the next five years.
Quoted: Cindy Meinholz, hospital services specialist with the University of Wisconsin Organ Procurement Organization; Dr. Niloo Edwards, professor and chairman for cardiothoracic surgery at UW-Madison and director of its heart transplantation program.
The heavy rains and flooding that hit Madison in early June have left their mark on city lakes and the University of Wisconsin-Madison Arboretum.
In the Arboretum, numerous trails and fire lanes need repair and a non-native plant species is thriving on storm-driven nutrients. On the lakes, massive blooms of dangerous blue-green algae have closed city beaches and are making it hard to enjoy lake life.
Swiss pharmaceutical and biotech giant Roche has acquired Madison-based Mirus Bio Corp. for $125 million, the two companies announced Tuesday.
Mirus Bio is a leader in RNAi (ribonucleic acid interference) technology, a method of determining how genes are turned off and on in cells, with new medicines emerging from RNAi that could prevent disease-causing proteins from being made.
According to a press release from Mirus Bio, Roche will maintain the RNAi research site in Madison.
(Mirus Bio Corp. was founded in 1995 by Dr. Jon Wolff and his colleagues James Hagstrom and the late Vladimir Budker.)
A UW-Madison pharmacologist helped discover a connection between genetics of blood cells and brain cells in the cause of Parkinson’s disease that could lead to new treatments for the disorder.
Parkinson’s, which affects as many as 1.5 million Americans, leads to higher levels of the alpha-synuclein protein in affected patients’ brains. The buildup of the protein creates a toxicity that kills dopamine-producing neurons and destroys nerves and muscles that control movement and coordination.
The team — made up of Emery Bresnick, a professor of pharmacolgy at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health, and scientists from the Harvard University-affiliated Brigham and Women’s Hospital and the University of Ottawa — found that genetic mechanisms of blood cells also control a Parkinson’s disease-causing gene and protein.
MADISON, Wis. — One of the things many people calculate when figuring out how to lose weight is their body mass index, but experts said a new calculation might be a better measure of obesity, especially when helping get children on track toward a healthy life.
Patricia Miller took her son, Christopher, to the University of Wisconsin Sports Medicine Clinic after his doctor recommended a body composition test to get a better understanding of Christopher’s body.
As a Wisconsin taxpayer, I am grateful and proud of Dr. James Thomson and UW-Madison’s bioscience community for their human embryonic stem cell discoveries. But as I study the funding issues relating to Wisconsin’s stem cell enterprise, I have become increasingly concerned with how our state is managing the intellectual property associated with these potentially lucrative discoveries.
One of my questions has to do with why did Wisconsin agree to give exclusive rights to the Geron Corp. in Menlo Park, Calif., for using Wisconsin-patented stem cells to treat heart disease, diabetes and neurological disorders? My concerns have to do with both the nature of the diseases chosen and the potential economic and health care implications involved.
I am also concerned with the potential conflict of interest involved and exactly by who and why this decision was made and whose interests are best being served.
MILWAUKEE (AP) — The Milwaukee-area medical helicopter service Flight for Life plans to open an air base in Fond du Lac next month. The base will have a $5 million twin-engine helicopter and the equivalent of 15 full-time workers.
But competing services based in Neenah and Madison complain that the addition isn’t needed.
More lungs are being transplanted from UW Hospital organ donors, but the rate for hearts is down, according to the latest public data.
The mixed picture comes as administrators are trying to improve both programs, which continue to have transplanted organ rates below the national average.
The medical arms race now has health care systems vying for air supremacy.Medical Helicopters
Flight for Life, the nonprofit air ambulance service based in the greater Milwaukee area, will open an air base in Fond du Lac next month that puts it in a position to draw patients from similar services in Neenah and Madison.
This means that to break even, Flight for Life will need to take market share away from ThedaCare in the Fox Valley or UW Health in Madison.
UW Health â?? which transported 1,312 patients last year through UW Med Flight â?? declined to comment on how Flight for Lifeâ??s new base could affect its service.
“It is very exciting!” exclaims Dr. John Fleming, “It’s the first time in the world that it’s been tried in a systematic way with Multiple Sclerosis patients. So in Wisconsin, we will be ground zero.”
Dr. Fleming is the lead researcher on a new study to determine whether drinking a worm potion can reduce the symptoms of MS.
“It’s a clear drink, kind of like Gatorade,” Fleming explains, “There are 2500 eggs in here that the patient will drink every two weeks.”
Quoted: Dr. Justin Sattin, a neurologist at UW Hospital who specializes in strokes.
People with certain common genetic variations that affect their nicotine receptors seem to be at higher risk for becoming life-long nicotine addicts if they begin smoking before they turn 17, a new study says.
The study was published in the July 11 issue ofPLoS Geneticsand, in addition to researchers at the University of Utah, involved investigators at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
UW-Madison scientists will soon be getting new cutting-edge research tools to allow the university to stay in the forefront of medical and biological research.
The National Center for Research Resources announced Thursday that UW will get a $1.6 million grant to allow the university to purchase a new instrument that combines a mass spectrometer, a nuclear magnetic resonance spectrometer and a liquid-chromatography system to be used in a variety of research projects, including projects developing new antibiotics and drugs for a range of diseases including cancer, tuberculosis and diabetes.
The Transplant Games are coming to town.
Madison has been chosen as the site for the 2010 U.S. Transplant Games, a 14-sport athletic competition for people who’ve received life-sustaining organ transplants.
Sara O’Loughlin, administrative director for the University of Wisconsin Hospital transplant program, said the announcement means a lot for both Madison and the UW.
Georgia showed the largest improvement in the United States in a national study evaluating state policies to improve pain management and patient care, with its “grade” jumping from a D to a B, the American Cancer Society reported Tuesday.
Researchers analyzed whether state pain policies and regulations enhanced or impeded pain management. The study, by the University of Wisconsin’s Pain & Policy Studies Group, said only five states received a grade of “A” for enabling health care professionals to effectively alleviate the suffering of their patients, without encountering barriers in legislation or regulation.
Rising temperatures and increased dehydration linked to global warming will boost kidney stone rates in the United States and around the world, new research suggests.
Kristina Penniston, a registered dietician and associate scientist in the department of urology at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health in Madison, called the new research “illuminating and provocative.”
Area hospitals have been included among the nation’s top 50 hospitals by U.S. News & World Report’s annual “America’s Best Hospitals” list, which will be released Monday.
University of Wisconsin Hospital and Clinics in Madison ranked 28th for kidney disease, 30th for cancer treatment, and 33rd for ears, nose and throat care, and urology.
The quality of drinking water in Brown County is good, but the air quality is not, according to a study by the University of Wisconsin Population Health Institute.
Central Wisconsin residents are exposed to some of the worst environmental hazards in the state, according to a new study.
Lincoln, Marathon, Portage and Wood counties generally were ranked toward the bottom of the stateâ??s 72 counties for air and water quality measures, according to the study conducted by researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madisonâ??s Department of Population Health Sciences.
Supermodel Cindy Crawford and nearly 1,000 other people who have watched children in their families struggle with cancers at American Family Children’s Hospital gathered Saturday at Monona Terrace for a reunion.
“Sharing is what gives us all strength,” Crawford told the crowd at the event, called Kids With Courage, before heading off to pose for pictures with excited children and their equally star-struck parents.
Stimulant drugs like Ritalin work by “fine-tuning” neuron activity in the prefrontal cortex, the part of the brain responsible for filtering out distractions and helping people to focus on tasks, new research in rats suggests.
Little is known about how Ritalin and related drugs actually work, researchers point out in the journal Biological Psychiatry.
To investigate, Dr. Craig Berridge of the University of Wisconsin-Madison and his colleague David Devilbiss attached tiny electrodes to individual neurons in the brains of normal rats and watched how different doses of the drug affected neuron activity.
Diabetes patients with a severe form of the disease, they have frequently faced life-threatening episodes of low blood sugar. But at UW Hospital, they received islet-cell transplants that have greatly improved their conditions. Doctors infused insulin-producing cells from donor pancreases into their livers.
Hundreds of little kids who beat cancer spent the day at Monona Terrace in Madison painting, playing basketball, and posing for pictures with Supermodel Cindy Crawford.
It’s the 4th Kids with Courage event, a five-year reunion for child cancer survivors. Crawford got involved in 1993 as a tribute to her brother, Jeffrey, who died at UW Hospital before his 4th birthday when Crawford was still a kid.
Story mentions UW Health fertility services.
Sleepers with periods of interrupted breathing during sleep were more likely to lose the expected drop in nighttime blood pressure, according to a new study by researchers from the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health reported in the June issue of the journal Sleep.
That is a cause for concern because the nighttime drop may help protect the body against bad cardiovascular events. And blood pressure that fails to drop at night is associated with hypertension, heart attacks and stroke.
Dr. Perry Pickhardt still finds it a bit shocking that more patients can’t make use of his research.
Almost five years ago, he arrived at the UW Hospital and Clinics radiology department from the Bethesda Naval Hospital in Maryland, bringing with him extensive work on what was then a relatively new screening procedure called virtual colonoscopy.
For the first time in more than 30 years, the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee is poised to add new schools to its campus.
At Friday’s meeting, UW System President Kevin Reilly also announced the creation of a new statewide commission to advise the UW System on how to make faculty and staff compensation more competitive.
Researchers will knock on doors and start taking physicals of 1,150 state residents this week. Ten researchers from the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health will check on residents in 120 select census blocks. It’s part of an annual survey on the health of Wisconsin residents.
MADISON â?? Wisconsin is getting a physical.
Starting this week, researchers will be knocking on peopleâ??s doors and taking physicals of Wisconsin residents.
Federal officials say the effort by the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health marks the nationâ??s first such in-depth probe of its kind.
Medical research in children, an issue causing U.S. regulators to balance safety concerns against the need for more trials, is getting scrutiny that may lead to changes in federal guidelines.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration is reviewing how to do pediatric studies on drugs for disorders such as asthma, on potential AIDS vaccines and for the medical use of stem cells, said Norman Fost, a pediatrics professor at the University of Wisconsin who’s chairing the panel. A two-day meeting on the questions starts today in Gaithersburg, Maryland.
People interested in stem cell research will be able to participate in a free, one-day public forum and festival on Sept. 21 on the UW campus. The event is part of the World Stem Cell Summit to be held at the Alliant Energy Center on Sept. 22-23.
People with milder asthma symptoms tend to fare better in the long-term if they start using inhaled steroids early on, a new study suggests.
Dr. William W. Busse, of the University of Wisconsin Medical School in Madison, led the study. Sweden-based AstraZeneca, which makes Pulmicort, funded the work.
In making his case Thursday to the University of Wisconsin Board of Regents on the need for UW-Milwaukee to become a major research institution, Chancellor Carlos Santiago said Milwaukee desperately needs what cities like Madison, Chicago and Minneapolis already possess – a critical mass of educational candlepower.
A few minutes later, Mayor Tom Barrett put a different spin on those words to help Santiago make his equally powerful case for creation of a school of public health at UWM.
MADISON, Wis. â?? The war in Iraq is creating a major â?? and perhaps deadly â?? shortage of night vision goggles for civilian pilots who fly medical helicopters in the U.S.
The National Transportation Safety Board has encouraged the use of such equipment since 2006 to reduce the risk of deadly nighttime crashes during emergency medical flights.
But air ambulance services that fly sick or injured people to the hospital have been put on waiting lists of a year or more by makers of night-vision gear because the U.S. military has contracts that give it priority.
Raise your wine glasses, again, to resveratrol. The compound present in red wine, red grapes, and pomegranates that makes obese mice live longer also packs a heart-healthy punch — even in low doses.
Quoted: Tomas Prolla, UW-Madison professor of genetics and senior author of the report.
It was a gorgeous Saturday morning and one of his two days off a month from work, but Lakhwinder Singh had to spend it inside a clinic on South Park Street, waiting.
….Singh’s bright orange turban was a welcome splash of color in the clinic, where about a dozen people with illnesses from diabetes to stomach pain waited … and waited. For Singh, it took 4 hours before he got his pills. But patients at South Side MEDiC Clinic rarely complain. Although only open on Saturday mornings, the clinic is free, the medical care is expert and caring, and few patients there can afford to go anywhere else.
The dramatic buzz and whir of a helicopter lowering to the scene of an accident is an emblem of modern emergency medicine.
So strongly does UW Health identify with the image that marketers chose a scene of a patient being transported from a helicopter for the cover of its latest annual report.
But do helicopter emergency medical services mean better outcomes for patients?
It depends on the condition of the patient, the distance to be traveled, and such logistics of transport as traffic or terrain, say experts. But it is hard to predict which patients will do better if moved by air, they say.
The UW-Madison School of Medicine and Public Health is asking the American Medical Student Association to review and revise its PharmFree Scorecard, a report on conflict of interest policies, after UW got a D in the report.
“Our grade is not appropriate,” said Patrick McBride, associate dean for students. “We provided AMSA with the information, but they missed many critical details.”
The scorecard graded 150 medical schools around the country on conflict-of-interest policies such as accepting pharmaceutical samples or gifts, allowing drug company representatives to make their sales pitches or getting paid honoraria to speak about their products.
Amna Buttar was in Madison the other morning and a remarkable thing happened — nothing.
Buttar took her daughter to the dentist and then met a friend to chat. She spoke with passion about her new life — she ‘s now a successful politician in her native Pakistan — but for the first time in recent memory there was no global controversy, no assault or assassination to discuss. It has been a frenzied few years for Buttar, and she welcomes the relative calm.
The University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health received a grade of D in the American Medical Student Association’s PharmFree Scorecard released Tuesday.
The scorecard said most U.S. medical schools are failing to address conflicts of interest caused by pharmaceutical industry marketing. Only 21 of 150 medical schools surveyed by the AMSA have strong policies (those graded A or B), according to the scorecard.
Madison-based stem cell company Stemina Biomarkers Discovery Inc. has learned it will receive a $150,000 Phase I grant from the National Cancer Institute through the federal government’s Small Business Innovation Research grant program, the Wisconsin Technology Council said in a news release Friday.
Stemina, founded in late 2006 by chief executive officer Beth Donley and UW-Madison stem cell scientist Gabriella Cezar, is aiming to use human embryonic stem cells to help determine whether new drug candidates will cause birth defects in humans. So-called “biomarker” research can also test drug toxicity in other ways.
Beginning at 7 a.m. on Saturday, May 31, UW Hospital and Clinicsâ?? Med Flight service will resume 24-hour service operation.
A well-known AIDS activist vacationing in Mexico was murdered by a man angry that she refused to pay for sex, Mexican authorities said Tuesday.
The murder devastated Madison’s gay community, where Felicia Melton-Smyth was a fundraiser for the AIDS Network and a fixture at the gay-friendly Shamrock Bar. Friends were already working Tuesday to set up a charitable foundation in her name.
….She worked during the day in the billing department for the University of Wisconsin Medical Foundation.
Med Flight crews took to the skies again Friday morning, 13 days after the helicopter crash that killed three returning from a flight to La Crosse.
Residents wanting to learn the newest lifesaving technique are invited to attend free training sessions June 7 at emergency medical services stations throughout Dane County.
UW Hospital’s Med Flight plans to resume patient flights today, said Dr. Bruce Lindsay, medical director of the helicopter service.
Flights will be conducted from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. until Med Flight is ready to resume 24-hour service, Lindsay said. Eventually, a second helicopter will be added again, he said.
In another obesity-related study presented at the conference, Erica Roberson, a postgraduate researcher at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, reported that fecal incontinence and urinary incontinence are little talked about but real problems for patients both before and after bariatric surgery.
A new form of CPR is getting some county-wide attention. County Executive, Kathleen Falk, announced Thursday an initiative to teach average citizens CCR, or cardio-cerebral resuscitation. Dr. Darren Bean, the doctor killed in the med Flight crash earlier this month, championed the project. Falk says Dr. Bean taught firefighters and emergency workers how to do CCR and his next passion was to teach citizens. Dr. Bean’s wife says her husband would have wanted the project to continue. “My husband would be so proud to have this, this was his vision. This was his passion in life to save lives and he was an educator at heart,” said Dr. Stacey Bean.
MADISON, Wis. — University of Wisconsin Hospital Med Flight operations will be back in the air on Friday, two weeks after a helicopter crash killed three near La Crosse.
The flight crews have been grounded since the crash on May 10.
Med Flight director Bruce Lindsay said that service will run 12-hour shifts for now — from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. — because that is the busiest times.
At Warner Park in Madison swarms of police officers wore bullet proof vests, helmets and grabbed high powered guns.
Training among the heavily armed police were Madison Fire EMTs.
“In the past we did emergency training at the paramedic level, but this training has a different twist,” says paramedic Dan Williams.
The EMTs are wearing heavy duty helmets, body armor and carrying duffel bags of medical equipment.
All purchased with an $18,000 grant made by Physicians Plus Insurance Group and the Meriter Foundation in the name of Dr. Darren Bean, the physician killed in the med flight crash almost two weeks ago.
After a tragic crash which claimed the lives of three crew members, the University of Wisconsin Hospital’s air transfer service will be back in operation, beginning at 9:00 Friday morning
Med Flight crews will take to the skies once again Friday morning, 13 days after the helicopter crash that killed three returning from an flight to La Crosse.
MADISON, Wis. — An increasing financial squeeze is prompting many researchers to spend more time searching for ways to fund their experiments and studies than in actual performing.
Officials said that this situation is essentially slowing the discovery of new developments.
“With us being so close to making major breakthroughs, to pull the plug on it, it’s just devastating. It’s very bad social policy, and it’s being pennywise, and a pound foolish,” said Bob Golden, dean and professor of the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health.
A preliminary investigation was unable to pinpoint a cause of the fatal Med Flight cash that killed three men near La Crosse May 10. The helicopter was destroyed during an in-flight collision with trees and terrain.
According to the National Transportation Safety Board, the helicopter was equipped with a global positioning system (GPS) tracking equipment that provided departure, arrival and en route position information to the operator’s Operations Control Center. Flight progress was automatically updated every thre minutes. According to the GPS flight-following data, the flight stopped for refueling and no further position updates were received after that.
MADISON, Wis. — A preliminary report released Wednesday offered no cause for why a University of Wisconsin Hospital Med Flight helicopter crash two weeks ago, killing three crew members.
The National Transportation Safety Board issued the report Wednesday, but it offered few new details. The report indicated that the helicopter collided with trees and terrain southeast of La Crosse on its way back to Madison.
The report said that the flight was conducted in accordance with federal aviation regulations, and gives no indication that there were any violations with the flight plan or equipment on board.
FAn initial report released today by the National Transportation Safety Board gave no indication why a UW Hospital Med Flight helicopter crashed near La Crosse May 10, killing all three aboard.
The preliminary report said the flight of the helicopter was in accordance with federal regulations.
So you’re facing a $527 million budget shortfall and the federal government offers to hand you not only $125 million, but also to fork over hundreds of million of dollars to hospitals to help cover the cost of care they provide to the poor.
How could you possibly say no?
Quoted: UW-Madison political science professor Dennis Dresang
MADISON, Wis. — University of Wisconsin-Madison Med Flight staff members began confidence flights without patients onboard Tuesday afternoon.
It’s the first step since a crash near La Crosse killed three members of the air ambulance team.
The 10-to-15-minute flights are available to staff members through Thursday. They give staff members the chance to fly before regular patient service resumes.
Nurse Mark Coyne, 53, was remembered Monday evening at a spirited and poignant memorial service at the Crossroads Church in Madison attended by more than 600 people, including more than 150 Med Flight, EMS, fire department and other emergency medical personnel from southern Wisconsin.
